Jul 30, 2018
Just Between Friends is a nationwide franchise that runs consignment events. About a decade ago, it experienced a crazy jolt: It sold more franchise units than it ever had... and that fast growth nearly bankrupted the company. Why? Because here’s the difficult truth about growing a business: Not all growth is...
Jul 23, 2018
Mike McDerment saw the future, and it wasn’t bright. His accounting and invoicing company, Freshbooks, was doing well with customers -- but behind the scenes, its software code was a mess and it wasn’t able to innovate as quickly as it needed to. But fixing this problem was tricky. If he ordered his team to hit...
Jul 16, 2018
Raquel Tavares, founder and CEO of a ghee company called Fourth & Heart, had just finished raising a round of funding -- and then her team looked at the company's numbers and realized they were almost out of money. How did this happen? The answer is simple: The company wasn't properly tracking its inventory and cost of...
Jul 9, 2018
As a company grows, its needs change -- and that means a leader must change as well. This is commonly accepted wisdom about leadership, but it's easier said than done. MailChimp's founder discovered that when his once-scrappy company reached about 300 employees, and, in an achingly awkward staff meeting, he...
Jul 2, 2018
It's perhaps the most terrifying situation an entrepreneur can face: Suddenly, the bank account is nearly empty. You can't pay your staff. You can barely keep the lights on. What now? This is what Saima Khan faced with her high-end cooking company Hampstead Kitchen. She charges a small fortune to cook intimate dinners...